


Eternal

by NicholasFlamelFan



Series: Of Ideas and Collections (The Alchemy Lab) [21]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), The Vampire Diaries (TV), Torchwood
Genre: Bad Wolf Rose Tyler, Big Brother Jack Harkness, Compulsion, F/M, Falling In Love, Kidnapping, M/M, Mystic Falls (Vampire Diaries), Protective Damon Salvatore, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-30 21:58:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19412221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicholasFlamelFan/pseuds/NicholasFlamelFan
Summary: What if Stefan wasn't in love with Katherine at all? What if there was someone else before the vampire even arrived? Starling Harkness moves to Mystic Falls shortly after Jack and she are abandoned by the Doctor. She meets Stefan and they fall in love but then Katherine happens, causing Stefan to forget all about Starling. What will she do? Will she give up?





	Eternal

"Nancy," Starling called out, seeing the older girl walking through the streets. The seventeen-year-old was still a little uncomfortable with this year even after months of living through 1941… Ever since her older brother Jack and she ended up here, she had been helping the children around London. Getting them food, helping them to find a place to stay the night. While doing that, Starling met Nancy. At first, she thought the other girl was around her age but there was something about her. Something more mature… It took several months but eventually, Nancy admitted everything to her.

The black-haired girl turned around, smiling when she recognized the figure hurrying closer to her "Starling. What have you got?" the older girl asked, nodding to the large bag Starling was carrying.

"Oh, I got some more food for the next few days. If you're good about it, it should last a week or so," Starling pointed out, showing Nancy the content of the bag.

The black-haired girl gasped "How did you get all this?"

"Friends in high places," the time traveller grinned "No, seriously. It's best if you don't know."

"If you say so," Nancy shrugged, waving at Starling to follow her "I have to tell you what happened. You wouldn't believe the day I had."

Starling tilted her head "Try me." She already knew about the kid that was following Nancy around all the time but she had never seen him personally. The other girl was very tight-lipped about it, so Starling dropped the subject. She hadn't seen her brother in a few days, preferring to spend her time with the kids, while Jack did his business. Probably sleeping around with more than a few people… Not that she cared. As long as she didn't have to listen to her father-figure going at it with random people, she was okay with it. Sadly, over the course of her life, Starling heard and saw way more of her older brother than she ever wanted to. Other than that though, she loved her older, annoying and more than a little overprotective brother. He had practically raised her after her mother had a breakdown following their father's death and Gray's disappearance. Jack hadn't been much better but he pushed away his own feelings in favour of raising his baby sister who had gotten the short end of the stick.

Nancy started explaining everything. From the child following her – and only her, it seemed – to the strange man who appeared in the house she had gone to earlier, getting the kids fed "I don't know… He was just asking about that bomb I told you about. The one that…"

Starling nodded "I know which one you're talking about." She swallowed nervously. That was the ambulance that Jack had thrown at that spaceship… From the beginning, the younger girl had thought it was a bad idea but her brother hadn't listened. He was only seeing the money and his lost memories… A part of her understood that Jack wanted to mess with the Agency but, on the other hand, she was scared to lose him if one of his trades went wrong. Jack was the only one she had left "Let's just get this back to the hideout, alright?" Starling gestured to the bag in her hands, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

Nancy nodded, leading me to the shack close to a railway station. It wasn't perfect but the best we could do… "Give me that bag," she murmured, holding out her hand. Starling handed it over and the older girl dropped in a few more items before hiding it in the shack. She stood back up and turned around to say something to Starling when she gasped "How did you follow me here?"

Starling whirled around in surprise, seeing the man Nancy had described to her. The man grinned joyfully "I'm good at following," he shrugged, tapping his nose "Got the nose for it."

"People can't usually follow me if I don't want them to," Nancy told him "Well, except for Starling. She loves to scare me whenever I'm not paying attention." With that she shot a glare at the younger girl, causing her to raise her hands in surrender.

"In my defence… When you don't pay attention, you… really don't pay attention," Starling murmured.

The Doctor looked at Nancy closely "Well, my nose has special powers."

"Yeah?" the black-haired girl raised her eyebrow "Is that why it's…" She trailed off, causing Starling to snort.

"What?" the Doctor frowned, glancing from one girl to the other.

Nancy shook her head, nudging her friend to stop her laughter. "Nothing… Do your ears have special powers too?"

"You're not helping," Starling gasped, leaning forward when her stomach started hurting.

"What are you trying to say?" the Doctor questioned "What's so funny?"

Nancy shook her head "Goodnight, Mister. Come on, Starling. We have to find the others…"

Before the two could walk away, the man called out for them "Nancy… There's something chasing you and the other kids. Looks like a boy and it isn't a boy and it started about a month ago, right? The thing I'm looking for, the thing that fell from the sky, that's when I landed. And you know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

"There was a bomb," Nancy admitted "A bomb that wasn't a bomb. Fell the other end of Limehouse Green Station."

"Take me there."

Starling shook her head "Nance… I'll take him. You go and look after the boys. I'm sure they've gotten in all kinds of trouble again."

"Are you sure?" the black-haired girl hummed.

"I am," Starling nodded.

Nancy sighed "Alright. Take him to the hospital as well, will you?"

The young time traveller saluted playfully and turned to the man "Follow me."

"So, who are you then?" the man questioned curiously, glancing down at me.

"Starling Harkness," the girl introduced herself, somewhat uncomfortable with the man. There was something about him that seemed… different. Something that made her think that he wasn't the person Jack thought he would be.

The Doctor nodded "Nice to meet you, Starling. That's a nice name, by the way."

"Thanks," the seventeen-year-old nodded before stopping on a hill close to the bomb site "It's over there… There have been soldiers guarding it for over a month, trying to figure out what it is. Barbed wire. You can get through if you're clever about it."

The Doctor raised his eyebrow "How would you get in if you had to?"

"There are parts that aren't guarded. Avoiding the soldiers is relatively easy when it gets close to shift change. Most are half-asleep by then," Starling pointed out "But you should go over there…" She pointed at the hospital that wasn't too far away from the site.

"Why? What's there?" the man questioned, narrowing his eyes on the building.

Starling licked her lips "Nancy told me some things. There's a man there… You should talk to him."

"And who might he be?" the man frowned.

"A doctor. The one in charge of the… of the boy that was too close to the bomb," the girl murmured, looking down at her feet guiltily.

The Doctor mustered her seriously. He was more than sure that she knew more than she was telling him. The guilt that was showing on her features was telling "Alright. I'll go to talk to the doctor after I saw that bomb."

Starling shook her head "No. You should talk to the doctor first… You have no idea what you're up against."

"Then tell me," the Time Lord half-snapped, ignoring the girl's shocked look "You know more than you let on. Tell me what's going on here."

The younger Harkness jerked away from him "I can't. Talk to the doctor."

The Doctor grabbed the girl's arm, tugging her along "Fine, but if there's something you're not telling me about this…"

"I don't know anything," Starling mumbled, trying to sound sincere. She was telling the truth… Well, bending the truth. Jack had told her what he had planned and shown her the capsule but other than that, she really didn't know what was going on.

The Doctor kept dragging her along and used his sonic to open the padlock on the ornate metal gate to the hospital grounds. Inside, there was a long. dark ward with every bed occupied by very still patients. Each and everyone was wearing a gas mask "You'll find them everywhere," a grumpy looking old man pointed out "In every bed, in every ward. Hundreds of them."

The Doctor nodded "Yes, I saw. Why are they still wearing gas masks?"

"They're not. Who are you? And it's good to see you again…"

"I'm, er…" the Time Lord stuttered, breaking off "Are you the Doctor?"

"Doctor Constantine," he introduced himself "And you are?"

Starling cut in "Nancy sent me to bring him here, Doctor Constantine."

"Nancy?" he raised his eyebrows and glanced at the man "That means you must've been asking about the bomb."

"Yes."

Doctor Constantine hummed "What do you know about it?"

"Nothing," the Time Lord shrugged "Why I was asking. What do you know?"

Constantine sighed tiredly "Only what it's done."

"These people," the Doctor murmured "They were all caught up in the blast?"

"None of them were," Constantine chuckled then coughed harshly. He fell back into the chair by the desk where normally the ward sister would be.

Starling knelt down close to him, about to reach out when the doctor stopped her "But you're sick."

"Dying, I should think," he smiled wryly "I just haven't been able to find the time. Are you a doctor?"

"I have my moments," the Doctor muttered, studying one of the patients attentively.

Constantine noticed his distraction "Have you examined any of them yet?"

"No."

"Don't touch the flesh," the old man warned, glancing at the young girl still kneeling close to his chair. Starling swallowed nervously but nodded, backing away from him.

The Doctor looked over his shoulder, his sonic screwdriver at the ready "Which one?"

"Any one." The Doctor pointed his sonic at the nearest patient and scanned him "Conclusion?"

The Time Lord took a deep breath "Massive head trauma, mostly to the left side. Partial collapse of the chest cavity, mostly to the right. There's some scarring on the back of the hand and the gas mask seems to be fused to the flesh but I can't see any burns."

"Examine another," Constantine called out, looking at the scar on the back of his hand.

"This isn't possible," the Doctor breathed "They've all got the same injuries. How did this happen? How did it start?"

Constantine stretched lightly "When that bomb dropped, there was just one victim."

"Dead?"

"At first…" The old man nodded "His injuries were truly dreadful. By the following morning, every doctor and every nurse who had treated him, who had touched him, had those same injuries. By the morning after that, every patient in the same ward, the exact same injuries. Within a week, the entire hospital. Physical injuries as plague. Can you explain that? What would you say was the cause of death?"

"The head trauma."

"No."

"Asphyxiation."

"No."

"The collapse of the chest cavity."

"No."

"Alright," the Doctor muttered in annoyance and surprise "What was the cause of death?"

Constantine smile enigmatically "There wasn't one. They're not dead." He hit a wastebasket with his stick and the noise made the patients sit up in their beds. Starling jumped in shock and even the Doctor blinked in surprise "But it's alright. They're harmless. They just sort of sit there. No heartbeat, like she said, no life signs of any kind. They just don't die."

"And they've just been left there," the Doctor glowered angrily "Nobody's doing anything?" The patients lie down again.

Constantine closed his eyes for a moment, slumping back on his chair "I try and make them comfortable. What else is there?"

"Just you?" the Doctor asked "You're the only one here?"

"Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather," Constantine pointed out "Now I am neither. But I'm still a doctor."

The Time Lord smiled grimly "Yeah. I know the feeling." Starling looked from one man to the other, unsure of what she was supposed to do now… Maybe she should go and look for Jack later, make sure that her brother didn't have anything to do with this.

"I suspect the plan is to blow up the hospital and blame it on a German bomb," Constantine sighed, shifting in his chair uncomfortably. The scar on the back of his hand was itching badly and he felt like absolute hell.

The Doctor shook his head "Probably too late."

"No," Constantine denied "There are isolated cases. Isolated cases breaking out all over London." He broke down in a coughing fit, causing the Doctor to take a couple of steps closer "Stay back, stay back. Listen to me. Top floor. Room eight oh two. That's where they took the first victim, the one from the crash site. And you must find Nancy again… Starling can help you with that."

The Doctor tilted his head "Nancy?"

"It was her brother," Starling murmured, averting her eyes from the man sitting on the chair.

"They both know more than they're saying," Constantine coughed "But they won't tell me… They… Mummy… Are you my mummy?" Starting with the mouth, his face was morphing into a gas mask. Starling gasped with tears in her eyes. What the hell was going on here?

The Doctor whirled around, glaring down at the girl when a voice echoed through the corridor "Hello?"

"Jack," Starling breathed, running out of the room and to where she heard the voices. As soon as she saw her older brother, she threw herself at him.

"Star?" the uniform-clad man frowned, looking at his seventeen-year-old sister in confusion "Starling, what's wrong?" She just shook her head, sniffing into his shoulder. Jack sighed, carrying his baby sister towards the doorway she had come from "Good evening," Jack nodded, seeing an older man who was undoubtedly the blonde's partner "Hope we're not interrupting. Jack Harkness… I've been hearing all about you on the way over."

Rose nodded, leaning closer to the Doctor "He knows. I had to tell him about us being Time Agents."

"And it's a real pleasure to meet you, Mister Spock," Jack nodded, making his way into the ward with Starling still in his arms.

Starling looked up with a confused expression "Jay? I don't think they're Time Agents…"

Jack hummed "Yeah, I'm starting to doubt it as well but we have to try. Are you alright?"

"No. What was that thing? It can't have just been an ambulance," the seventeen-year-old murmured.

The older Harkness groaned out loud, looking down at his Vortex Manipulator. He had scanned one of the patients, barely noticing how his sister was keeping her distance from the beds "Oh, not again. Star, this has nothing to do with the capsule. You saw me scanning it."

"But Jack –"

"What kind of Chula ship landed here?" the Doctor demanded, storming into the ward where the two siblings were.

Jack blinked in surprise "What?"

Rose walked in behind the Time Lord "He said it was a warship. He stole it, parked it somewhere out there, somewhere a bomb's going to fall on it unless we make him an offer."

"What kind of warship?" the Doctor demanded dangerously.

"Does it matter?" the older Harkness huffed defensively "It's got nothing to do with this."

Starling shifted "It's an ambulance."

"Starling," her older brother exclaimed in annoyance.

"No, Jack," the seventeen-year-old cried out "This started at the bomb site. I told you this was a bad idea."

"Fine," he sighed "Look." He produced a hologram of it from his Vortex Manipulator "That's what you chased through the Time Vortex. It's space junk. I wanted to kid you it was valuable. It's empty… I made sure of it. Nothing but a shell. I threw it at you. Saw your time travel vehicle, love the retro look, by the way, nice panels. Threw you the bait…"

Rose blinked "Bait?" she cut in.

"I wanted to sell it to you and then destroy it before you found out it was junk," Jack explained. Starling crossed her arms with a huff, causing her older brother to wrap his arm around her shoulders.

"You said it was a warship," Rose reminded him.

The ex-Time Agent rolled his eyes. Was she really that naive? "They have ambulances in wars. It was a con. I was conning you. That's what I am, I'm a con man. I thought you were Time Agents. You're not, are you?"

The blonde shook her head with a grin "Just a couple more freelancers."

"Told you," Starling coughed.

"Smartass," Jack groaned, ruffling his sister's hair "Should have known, though. The way you guys are blending in with the local colour. I mean, Flag Girl was bad enough but U-Boat Captain? Anyway, whatever is happening here has got nothing to do with that ship," Jack finished "No, Star…" He cut the seventeen-year-old off "I told you this was safe. It has nothing to do with this."

"But Jack…"

Rose turned to look at the Doctor "What is happening here?"

"Human DNA is being rewritten," the Time Lord answered "By an idiot."

The blonde frowned "What do you mean?"

"I don't know," the Doctor sighed "Some kind of virus converting human beings into these things. But why? What's the point?"

Suddenly, the patients sat up " _Mummy. Mummy. Mummy? Mummy?_ "

"What's happening?" Rose cried in fear at the same time as Jack had pulled his younger sister behind himself, shielding her with his body.

The Doctor was backing away with wide eyes "I don't know…"

All of the patients stood up, staggering towards the group " _Mummy? Mummy._ "

"Don't let them touch you," the Doctor warned.

The blonde turned her head "What happens if they touch us?"

"You're looking at it." Another step back and the time travellers were all pressed against the wall, surrounded by the creepy gas mask zombies.

" _Help me, mummy. Mummy. Mummy. Mummy. Mummy. Mummy. Mummy._ "


End file.
